Quotations
In the dying world I come from quotation is a national vice. It used to be the classics, now it's lyric verse.
- Waugh, Evelyn
- Waugh, Evelyn
Next to being witty yourself, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.
- Bovee, Christian Nevell
- Bovee, Christian Nevell
I must claim the quoter's privilege of giving only as much of the text as will suit my purpose, said Tan-Chun. If I told you how it went on, I should end up by contradicting myself!
- Cao Xueqin
- Cao Xueqin
A book that furnishes no quotations is no book -- it is a plaything.
- Peacock, Thomas Love
- Peacock, Thomas Love
The essence of a quote is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying.
- Morely, John
- Morely, John
The next best thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.
- Benjamin Disraeli
- Benjamin Disraeli
We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our white mythology. Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.
- Hassan, Ihab
- Hassan, Ihab
To be amused by what you read--that is the great spring of happy quotations.
- C. E. Montague
- C. E. Montague
Life itself is a quotation.
- Jorge Luis Borges
- Jorge Luis Borges
A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion.
- Robert Chapman
- Robert Chapman
A book that furnishes no quotations is, me judice, no book—it is a plaything.
- Thomas Love Peacock
- Thomas Love Peacock
People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.
- David H. Comins
- David H. Comins
I didn't really say everything I said.
- Yogi Berra
- Yogi Berra
A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
- Joseph Roux
- Joseph Roux
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.
- Sir Winston Churchill
- Sir Winston Churchill
A quotation at the right moment is like bread to the famished.
- Talmud, The
- Talmud, The
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde
- Oscar Wilde
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
- George Bernard Shaw
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.
- Marlene Dietrich
- Marlene Dietrich


















